This invention relates to an assembly for housing equipment, optionally, fuel cell balance of plant equipment and its support, whereby the housing serves as a shelter for the equipment during its transportation to, and storage at, a final destination.
A fuel cell is a device which provides a substantially renewable energy source that is virtually free of undesired emissions. Also, fuel cells are known to be highly efficient and thus cost-effective sources of energy production. Accordingly, many consumers of energy such as hospitals, universities, hotels and utilities, of varying size, have been attracted to the use of the fuel cells in maintaining their buildings and facilities.
A fuel cell power plant usually includes fuel cells arranged in one or more stacks situated in a module and so-called “balance of plant equipment” which is the remainder of the equipment required to operate the fuel cell module. The balance of plant equipment is typically arranged on a support frame to assist in transporting the equipment to its location of use. Transporting the balance of plant equipment has been accomplished by placing the equipment within a metal container. To do this, various techniques have been used to load the equipment within the container.
One technique involves a procedure whereby the balance of plant equipment is loaded via its frame onto a platform and then the platform containing the equipment is lifted by, for example, a forklift, and then placed into the container. Once inside the container, the equipment is off-loaded from the platform and the platform is removed from the container, thereby leaving the equipment within the container. At the user location, the balance of plant equipment is removed from the container and inserted into a housing which serves as its permanent enclosure at the location.
As can be appreciated, in the above practice, the fuel cell balance of plant equipment and its housing are transported separately to the user location. It has been observed that it would be advantageous to provide a manner of packaging the equipment and its housing together at the location of the fuel cell manufacturer. In this way, the housing could function both as the shipping container for the equipment as well as its permanent housing at the user location.
This would eliminate the effort and expense associated with the separate shipment of the equipment and housing from their respective points of manufacture as well as with the separate assembly of the equipment within the housing at the final user location. Significant economic advantages would, therefore, result.
Accordingly, it has been observed that there exists an opportunity for introducing an alternative assembly and method for transporting a piece or pieces of equipment, optionally fuel cell balance of plant, whereby the steps involved in doing so are kept to a minimum.